


It Starts With a Capital 'P'

by miss_slothrop, ShyBunny



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Male Friendship, Potty Humor, teenage boys being teenage boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 18:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16068575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_slothrop/pseuds/miss_slothrop, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyBunny/pseuds/ShyBunny
Summary: One winter's day after school lets out, Prompto decides to show off his ability to write his name in the snow the way young boys are prone to.  Noctis isn't sure how to react at first, but when Prompto issues a challenge to outdo him, the prince can't let it go unanswered.





	It Starts With a Capital 'P'

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a joke in the new Disney XD Spider-Man cartoon, of all places. Robbie Daymond, the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, is also the English voice of Prompto and sounds very similar between those works. In one episode of the cartoon he made a "writing my name in the snow" joke and this idea popped into my head. Half the credit for this goes to ShyBunny, my best friend, since the version of the story that you see here developed out of a conversation we had right after the cartoon first aired.

“Ta-daaaa! Check it out, Noct.” Prompto stepped aside to present a better view of his creation, gesturing toward it with a flourish of his hand. “Guess who’s got skills.” Noctis’s expression remained blank as ever as he looked, not really sure how to react. They’d been walking to the arcade to get in some quality time beating their own high scores in target shooting after school, cutting through the nearly empty park to close the distance quicker and get out of the cold. About halfway across the park, Prompto had asked for an emergency pit stop and Noctis had waited patiently for him to return, rolling on his feet and silently praying that nobody would notice. A few minutes later he’d heard Prompto call him over to this spot and what else should his best friend have to show him but his first name written in the snow.

“Hmm,” Prompto hummed, moving his hand to his chin to give it a little rub of clearly feigned consideration. “I could’ve done better on the ‘O’ at the end and maybe should’ve spent less time getting the ‘P’ just right, but hey, you make do with what you’ve got, right? There’s barely any splatter around the edges.” Noctis was still silent, rubbing at the end of his nose. What was he supposed to say to this?

“Yeah,” he said at last, looking just to the right of Prompto’s eyes. “You sure…did that.”

Prompto deflated with a grunt. “Oh come on, Noct. It takes serious skill to pull this off. Perfect aim, precision control, carefully honed mental discipline. It’s like a work of art.”

“Riiiiiiight,” sighed Noctis.

“Oh, like you could do better!” Prompto snapped, one gloved hand balled into a fist.

Noctis chuckled and shrugged. “Maybe I could.”

“Well how about I see you try, then?” Prompto crossed his arms and smirked. “You ready to prove it?”

“What, right now?”

“Yeah, right now.” Prompto’s breath was steaming through his teeth, his grin taking on a vaguely threatening glow in the low light of the overcast evening. “Nobody else is watching. You can take all the time you need, Your Highness.”

Noctis glared at Prompto, the acid in his friend’s voice managing to sting him. “But I don’t even have to…ugh, fine.” He marched through the snow to an open patch a few feet from Prompto’s proud masterwork. “If it really means that much to you.” Looking down at the snowy canvas before him, Noctis heaved a sigh that blew a cloud of his own breath into his eyes. He reached for his zipper, but stopped when he still felt eyes on him. He took a peek over his shoulder to see Prompto still watching him with his disproportionate ire all over his face. “Turn around, you jackass.”

“Huh? Oh! R-right.” The prickly air about Prompto from just a second before vanished and he turned his back on Noctis slowly and sheepishly. Noctis smirked and looked forward again; for all Prompto’s playing at having his pride wounded, it sure didn’t take much to make him forget to be mad.

And now for the task at hand. Noctis stared down at the snow again, unsure of what to do. He’d heard plenty of talk in the halls at school about writing one’s name in the snow this way, but he’d never actually tried it. Rarely was he this isolated for so long in public and if he’d tried it on the Citadel grounds, either Ignis or Cor or his father or just about anybody there would have his head, heir to the throne of Lucis or not.

“Freezing my ass off over here.” Prompto’s voice cut into Noctis’s thoughts so sharply that he shuddered. “But sure, just take your time. I bet you’re chickening out on me.”

“Can it!” Noctis spat back. He heard Prompto chuckle behind him and scowled at the snow. His friend’s anger may have been mostly fake, but it had managed to awaken the drive to compete in Noctis. He couldn’t just match what Prompto had done. He had to do something better, something bigger. But _how?_ He probably didn’t have it in him. Literally.

It was then that inspiration struck. Noctis fought to suppress a chuckle of his own as he unzipped his fly as loudly as he could with one hand and pulled the glove off his other hand with his teeth. The sound had just been a decoy, though. As quietly as he could, he squatted in front of the pristine snow and reached his bare hand into it, focusing. He’d never been particularly good at using this type of magic, so it took a fair amount of effort to conjure up the power from within and channel it down his arm and into the tip of his finger. Finally he felt a spark ignite there and the tiniest tongue of fire came to life on his palm, melting the snow around his fingertip. Noctis actually managed to crack a genuine smile as he dragged his hand along, shuffling sideways through the snow as he wrote. Once he was done he stood up without a sound, pulled his glove back on and made a big performance of zipping his fly up.

“Alright, _there,_ ” he said. “You can turn back around now.”

“About time,” Prompto teased, turning to face Noctis with all the hallmarks of a man whose precious daylight hours were being wasted. “I stand out here in this cold much longer and I think I might freeze off my- SIX!” He stumbled backward a couple steps with the force of his own shock. “Noct, how did you…how is that even…HOW?!” Written in the snow before him in a particularly careful and polished script were three names, ‘Noctis Lucis Caelum.’

“Sorry that took so long,” said Noctis with an overdramatic stretch of his arms above his head and a roll of his neck. “It’s pretty delicate work. You have to hit the snow juuust right.”

“But…it…” Prompto was groping for words in his mind, his eyes on the verge of flying out of his head. “That…shouldn’t be possible! How is that possible?!” He stepped closer to Noctis’s full name in the snow, legs wobbling and steps heavy. He looked back and forth between the letters, melting snow still dripping into them, and the trail of footprints drawing a line between him and them. Noctis had been very careful with his foot placement; the only thing those prints looked like was someone stepping sideways through the snow to write out all of it.

Noctis put his hands in his coat pockets and shrugged, the smuggest look in Insomnia on his face. “Told you I could.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Prompto pointed a finger right in Noctis’s face, so close that Noctis had to cross his eyes to look at it. “You gotta tell me! How’d you do that?”

“Hey, calm down,” said Noctis, pushing Prompto’s hand away. “Why’s it so important to you?”

“Because nobody’s supposed to be able to do that!” shouted Prompto, waving his hand wildly at Noctis’s writing. “No _human being,_ anyway! I barely got mine out! And now look at _you!_ Three names! And so _clean!_ How?!”

“Easy, easy.” Noctis held up both his hands and took a step back. “You keep shouting like that and someone’s gonna come over here and see.”

Prompto sighed and dropped his volume, though he was still a little pink in the face. “Come oooon, Noct. Why can’t you just tell me? You probably set a world record here.” Noctis snorted at that one, a laughing smile crossing his face for a second before it faded just as quickly.

“You really want me to teach you my secret?”

“Yes!” Prompto answered, starting to raise his voice again. “Yes! I have to know!”

Noctis smirked again as he leaned in a little closer. “I can’t.”

“WHAT?!” Prompto’s outburst was so loud that it startled a birdbeast in a tree some ways away from them, the flutter of the animal’s wings making both boys jump. “Why in the name of the Six not?!” Noctis couldn’t help but guffaw at that, his laughter near silent after that as he fought to control it. “Stop it!” whined Prompto. “Aren’t I your friend? Don’t I get to know, too?”

“I’m sorry,” said Noctis as he rubbed the beginnings of tears out of his eyes, “but this particular talent is kind of a family secret.”

“Huh?” Prompto quirked an eyebrow at him. “’Family secret?’ What kind of family secret is tha-…” As he cut himself off, his eyes widened and his jaw went slack as it dawned on him. “You…you used magic, didn’t you?”

“You got me,” said Noctis, pulling his glove off one more time to concentrate and bring a little flame to the end of his finger again, letting it go out quickly. “This was good practice. I guess I should be thanking you.”

“Wha-…y-…” Prompto struggled to talk. “You son of a bi-…uh…” He blushed. “You…you _dirty cheater!_ No fair!” There was no holding Noctis’s laughter back now. He cracked up harder than he could ever remember doing, doubling over and clutching his gut as his abs cramped. “You are such an ass!” Prompto continued. “How long were you planning on keeping me going like that, huh?”

“Not too…aha…ahahahahahaaah!” Noctis coughed and cleared his throat. “Not too long. I was counting on you figuring it out like you did.” He sniffled and wiped his eyes again, a few remaining laughs tumbling out. “Wow, that was great.”

“Shut up.” Prompto turned his back on Noctis and shot him the stink-eye over his shoulder. “You’re still a dirty cheater.”

“Whatever,” said Noctis, a lighter quality in his tone. He walked over to his three names and started scuffing them away, dragging his feet through the snow until nothing was left of them. “You should get rid of yours, too.”

“What for?” asked Prompto, still only watching Noctis with his sideways look.

“Come on,” said Noctis, “it’s not obvious? You don’t want the whole city knowing what you did, do you? You don’t exactly have a common name.” Prompto’s pink flush from earlier deepened to a startling red and Noctis gave him a wicked grin. “Unless you’re into marking your territory.”

“Wha-…SHUT IT!” Prompto spun around in an instant, blushing so hard that Noctis was almost afraid that his best friend’s face might explode. “Why would you-…That’s gross, Noct.”

“Oh _now_ it’s gross?” Noctis looked on as Prompto marched up to his entirely non-magical scrawl in the snow in complete silence, rubbing the letters away with one foot. For good measure he scraped some snow from around it over the top before heading for the path out of the park, still without speaking. Noctis followed along behind and caught up with Prompto on the path, waiting until the unhealthily deep redness all over Prompto’s face receded to try speaking to him again. “Hey,” he said, keeping his voice quiet, “you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” muttered Prompto, his chin buried in his coat collar and his eyes on the ground.

“Really?” asked Noctis. “Because I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“Nah,” said Prompto, a bit of his regular bravado coming back to him. “It’s okay.”

Noctis sighed, fiddling with a question in his head. “Don’t take my asking this the wrong way,” he began, “but why was this suddenly so important to you?” Finally Prompto looked at him again, one eyebrow raised. “I never pegged you for the kind of guy who showed off like _that._ ”

“Oh,” said Prompto, rubbing at the back of his head as he looked straight ahead, some of his blush coming back. “It’s just, I heard a lot of guys at school bragging about it and I kinda thought _everybody_ did it.” He glanced over at Noctis. “Was I wrong?”

“Pretty much,” said Noctis, at a loss for any other way to phrase it. “I almost hate to say it, but we go to school with a lot of idiots.”

“Ooh.” Prompto recoiled from the remark. “Coming from anyone else that’s just talk, but from the guy who’s gonna be their king someday? That’s _cold._ ”

“No it’s not,” said Noctis, trying to keep the mischief off his face as he ducked down quickly to grab a handful of fresh, powdery snow. “But this is.” Before Prompto could register what was going on, Noctis had him by his collar and shoved the handful of snow down his back.

“NOCT!” Prompto screeched, writhing as he tried in vain to claw the snow out of his coat collar. When he failed to do that, he reached down into the snow on his side of the path and scooped up his own clump of it. “You asked for it, buddy. It is _on_ now!”

“Come on,” Noctis goaded, beckoning with both hands. “Hit me with your best shot.” Prompto threw the snow in his hand wildly, scattering it in a cloud that only managed to dust Noctis’s arm with white. Laughing again, Noctis reloaded his supply and took a retaliatory shot, getting snow all over Prompto’s chest and half his face. Prompto returned fire from the ground, still bent over as he swiped snow over and over into the air around Noctis. Both of them were laughing again, each trying to find more creative ways to lob snow at the other as they crossed to the other side of the park. By the time they did finally reach the arcade, their coats were both nearly soaked through and neither one of them could catch his breath through his laughter.


End file.
